RIM Claims BlackBerry Smartphones Save UK Police Money

RIM has been very vocal in how they believe that the UK police force is saving a huge amount of money for using the BlackBerry platform. The Canadian company believes that the police force is saving more than £112 million each year by using these smartphones.

Tom Jowitt from eWeek said that Research In Motion came up with this figure by working out the savings for each officer, and then multiplying that by the total number of BlackBerry smartphones used by police officers in the UK.

Rory O’Neill from the UK division of RIM said that 1 in 6 officers in the UK now have a BlackBerry. The idea of using a BlackBerry is to cut down on the amount of time spent retrieving records, making it much easier while on the street.

These smartphones connect with the Police National Computer (PNC), allowing officers on the street full access to the information. They can even take a picture of when a crime is committed and then make a digital record of it.

Now that the PlayBook tablet has been announced, it is now thought that police forces could also adopt this technology – although not certain where on their uniform they will keep the device?